While this is an important step, we need more than repealing and tinkering. We need a total overhaul of the system which begins with ensuring permanent status on landing for migrant workers now and a regularization program for workers who stayed and became undocumented.

In the announcement, the Federal Government promised to expand ‘pathways to citizenship’. The Coalition for Migrant Worker Rights Canada (CMWRC) believes that ‘pathways’ are a euphemism for maintaining unjust temporariness for low-waged and racialized workers. A pathway is a two stage process, where migrant workers must first complete a temporary sentence of abuse and injustice before a few are selected to compete for permanent status. Low-waged and racialized people deemed to be doing ‘low-skilled’ work deserve permanent status on landing, just as much as those deemed to be doing ‘high skilled’ work.